Facebook's free internet.org to include Europe

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he plans to expand his free internet programme to Europe. He made the announcement during a public Q&A session on Facebook on Tuesday. Internet.org is already available in Brazil and India where it offers the nation's low-income citizens a degree of free internet access.

"Yes, we want to bring Internet.org [everywhere] where there are people who need to be connected. We're starting off by prioritizing the countries with the most unconnected people and by working with network operators and governments who are most excited about working with Internet.org to get everyone online in their countries."

Asked about the benefits of its initiative, Zuckerberg responded:

"When we talk about connecting the world, most people talk about the clear benefits to all the people who will get internet access and don't have it today. Those benefits are many: access to education, health information, jobs and so on. Many people estimate that for every 1bn people we connect, we'll raise more than 100m out of poverty.

"Think about how many brilliant entrepreneurs there are out there who have great ideas and the will to change the world, but just lack basic tools to do so today. If you go by the population, almost two-thirds of these entrepreneurs don't have internet access today. Once they get connected, we may have three times as many good ideas and amazing new services built that will benefit everyone around the world."